Just a day after an international agreement on a ceasefire in the Syrian Civil War, which is supposed to be implemented within a week, rebels in Syria’s Aleppo Province are reporting unnamed countries have sent them “excellent quantities” of missiles to fight the Syrian military with.
The rebels reportedly received BM-21 Grad missiles and say they’re firing them against Syrian positions already in an effort to stall the ongoing offensive north of the city of Aleppo. Though the source country was not named, Saudi Arabia has been the primary purchaser of arms for rebel factions.
The provision of missiles is technically not a violation of the ceasefire, since the end of hostilities is still a few days away, but if the shipments are as large as the rebels are suggesting, it certainly is meant to be used for more than just a few days of fighting.
Still, such a shipment may simply be an effort to ensure the rebels remain formidably armed during the ceasefire. That said, such rebel factions aren’t all that behind the ceasefire effort to begin with, and aren’t necessarily going to be reliable factions to expect to respect the deal.
Just look at Yemen! Saudi Arabia calls a ceasefire but continues the bombing. Which leads me to believe that the illiterate Saudi royal family don’t understand the meaning of the word ceasefire and the Americans are only too happy with this ignorance. The Saudis will keep supplying their proxies even after the ceasefire is called which makes what Assad said about closing the Turkish border all too true.
Booo!—Any bets America is using Saudis and the Turks as transporting mules?
BM-21 Grad is a rocket, not a missile. The distinction is important, because such rockets are “area bombardment” weapons. They are fired at whole areas, like cities.
They are meant to be indiscriminate, cheap, and to be fired in large numbers to make up for that.
Fired in small numbers, they are just terror weapons.
They have no potential for use as precision weapons against Assad’s forces.
That’s what the West is sending into Syria, despite the ceasefire.
I suspect the announcement was meant to make the Syrian/Russian coalition more cautious in their current offensive, thus slowing it down. Not gonna happen. Likewise the Saudi offer of troops is a rhetorical tactic aimed at trying yet again to get the US to increase its involvement in the fight. Again, not gonna happen.
What you are seeing now, in the offer of a cease fire, is victory for Russia/Assad. This is what victory looks like. The other side cries “ceasefire”, which is to say “uncle”, hoping then for a quick ceasefire to end the rout and enable them to hold on to their rapidly-diminishing gains.